The Wayward Astronomer
by Kafelnikov
Summary: A DreamKeepers universe fiction, written by Geoffrey Licciardello. The Wayward Astronomer chronicles the journeys of young astronomer Halcyon Adhil as he becomes entangled in a violent series of events that will come to change his life, and the way he sees the world, forever... Rated M for violence and language
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1  
Location: The Starfall Mountains, 2100 hours

Halcyon Adhil stared up at the nighttime sky and marveled at the sheer explosion of color pouring down from the heavens. He could see the gamma ray bursts from supernovas, the fiery ultraviolet from a young main sequence, the smoldering infrared from an ancient red giant in the final stages of its existence. He was looking into the past as he looked up at the heavens, a silent witness to events that had transpired eons ago.

Hal blinked his orange reptilian eyes and squinted as a fierce gust of wind pelted his body with stinging glittering flecks of snow and rock. His tail turned away from the wind, coiling up tightly to conserve body heat. Among the DreamKeepers of Anduruna he certainly had not met any that looked much like him, a body with origins as ancient as the heavens themselves. Halcyon was a feathered reptile; a raptor. Neither dinosaur nor bird, he found himself on the terminus between two eras of evolution. His dark green scaly skin was almost entirely covered by jet black plumage, much like a raven. It was only in certain areas, small patches around his eyes, the raptor talons of his feet, and his tail, where his reptilian nature was obvious. Of course, the fact that he had a mouth of razor sharp teeth instead of a beak was hard to miss, feathered as it was. All dreamkeepers were unique in appearance, but he had yet to meet any with great physical similarities to himself.

What many people had a difficult time getting used to was his tail. The chimera-like appendage had a snake head at the end, with a quartet of blood red eyes. He looked down at it, tightly coiled into a compact bundle on the stone platform, eyes shut against the wind. Slow awareness of just how cold it was outside on the Starfall mountains caused him to pull the collar of his jacket more tightly about his neck. His tail operated semi-independently from his own conscious will, but was not intelligent or sentient in its own right. It was a sometimes useful, often annoying, broadcaster of his emotional state and subconscious thought. It had no name, as it was just another part of himself: Hal. He would no sooner start naming each hand or foot, they were all just parts of his body.

His tail looked up and blinked as a wedge of yellow light poured onto the platform from the now-open door behind him. "HAL!" The voice was loud, accusatory, and female. In an instant, the faint halo above his head disappeared as he returned his eyes to the normal visible spectrum, but it was too late to conceal what he had been doing. He turned, looking over his shoulder at the angry violet and gray fox behind him. As she started marching towards him, his tail recoiled from her defensively, head lowered. "You were using your power again, weren't you!" Her words were partially swept away by the stinging wind, but they resonated with the clarity of truth.

Hal raised his hands in a gesture of half surrender. "Relax, Miri. The mountains aren't going to turn me over to the troopers. We're the only living beings within a dozen miles of here." His voice was deep but raspy, and sadly a poor defense against the fury of his research assistant.

"That's not the point!" She jabbed a finger into his chest and looked up at him defiantly. "If you keep pushing your luck, one of these days someone -will- see you, and then you'll find yourself in far more trouble than you can handle! The observatory isn't your own personal playground. You're lucky I don't turn you in myself!" Miri was clearly upset, but Hal knew that she was only acting this way out of concern for his safety. Powers violations were not tolerated, even more benign powers such as his own.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Sorry." The apology was one he had issued many times before. Miri was one of the few people who knew that he had discovered his power to see other ranges of the EM spectrum, and mercifully, she had been a good enough friend to keep it to herself through the years. The wind pelted the two of them with another stinging gust, and Hal's tail hissed in dissatisfaction. "Come on." Miri grabbed his arm and started to lead him away from the edge of the railing towards the door into the observatory. "If you stay out here too much longer you'll turn into an ice cube."

She led Hal back into the small remote observatory, which was considerably warmer and far less windy than the snow covered mountains outside. The room was a large hemispherical chamber with a very expensive looking telescope in the center, mounted on a platform which could be precisely rotated and controlled via data scroll to observe practically any celestial object. This was Hal's sanctuary, at least for a couple days at a time, when he left his job as an assistant lecturer at the university behind in order to do astronomical research in the remote peaks of the Starfall mountains. It was one of the few places he could feel safe using his power to see the world with different eyes.

A large fire in the fireplace off to one side helped breathe some life into the mostly open room, and there was a pot with some sort of stew bubbling happily over the flame. His tail tasted the air frequently, angling closer to the fire. "What's cooking? It smells good." He reached for a chair at one of the work tables covered with scattered pages of his own handwritten notes.

"I don't know why you always ask." Miri sighed, walking over to the pot and stirring the contents with a long handled spoon. "It's always the same thing. Bander meat and vegetable stew." The steam from the simmering cauldron quickly fogged up her glasses, which she removed to wipe clean with the cloth of her lab coat.

Miri, like Hal, was a fellow astronomer and assistant teacher at the university, pursuing a doctorate underneath their mutual mentor, Doctor Kincaid. They had known each other for years, and had constantly competed against one another as they rose through the ranks of academia. She was smart, ambitious, and highly attractive by most opinions. The rumor mill often whispered about all the time they spent 'doing research' together out in the mountains, but so far, that's all they *had* been doing. Research. They had settled into an often rivalrous but close friendship over the years, and things had never progressed anywhere further than that. "I'm hoping one of these days you'll surprise me." Hal answered, pulling the chair out from the table. "Perhaps you'll finally snap, murder one of your annoying students, and cook him into a delicious meal for me."

Miri chuckled, flicking her tail as she placed her eyeglasses back on her face. "You shouldn't joke about- oh Hal!" The warning was a split second too late. As he started to sit down in his seat, Hal was suddenly jolted with an electric shock, sending himself and the chair clattering to the ground. Miri's pet, a spark ryuu-neko named Tesla, had been napping in Hal's chair until the raptor tried to sit on him. The skittish yellow thing darted away in a flash after the self defense release of electrical energy, leaping up into Miri's lab coat, fur standing on end in surprise.

"Ugh... damn it Tesla, why can't you pick a safer place to sleep?" Hal's tail snapped at the ryuu-neko in agitation as he pulled himself back up onto his feet, righting the fallen chair and much more carefully slipping into his seat. The yellow critter shied away, clinging onto Miri and looking to her for protection as she folded him into her arms gently. "Maybe you should look where you're sitting next time. Poor Tesla." She smoothed the statically charged fur of her pet, which was staring worriedly at Hal's agitated snake-tail.

"I don't think that critter ever liked me." Hal grumbled, reaching out with feathered arms to scoop up the notepaper littering the table and congregate it into a single neat stack.

"It's your tail. You know it bothers him." She gave Tesla a small kiss on the back of the head and placed him back on the floor, where he quickly scampered off to places unseen. Miri turned back to the stew and began to ladle the contents into a pair of bowls. She walked over to the table and sat down opposite Hal, sliding his dinner across to him with a wry smile.

"Hey, you know I can't do anything about that." Hal's tail rested on the edge of his bowl of soup, tasting the steam billowing out from it. "Anyways, the weather is really starting to get nasty out there. I think we should head back to Calypsa tomorrow morning first thing before a snowdrift blocks off the main pass back to the city. As charming as the present company is, we don't have the supplies to last us more than a few days should we get stuck up here in the mountains."

"Yeah, you're right..." Miri sounded disappointed as she swallowed a mouthful of the piping hot stew, her ears lowering. "I was just hoping to get some more observation data while the moon was full. I don't want to wait another lunar cycle. At least I managed to gather some good rock and mineral samples for the geology lab earlier today."

Hal listened silently as he ate his stew. Though the taste was very familiar, the heat and warmth it gave him was more delicious than the flavor of the ingredients themselves. Despite the warm plumage covering his scales, Hal had always despised the cold. Unfortunately he had been forced to get used to it, since there was no better place to observe the stars than from the tops of the Starfall mountains, save perhaps the top of the Sabbaton tower; but there were no telescopes up there, just some overly ornate library. "I think that the geology department should send some of their own..." Hal trailed off suddenly, his tail suddenly upright and alert, head swiveling around and tongue tasting the air as if looking for something.

"What?" Miri gave Hal a concerned look, but soon it became clear that something wasn't right. "Wait... Do you hear that? Sounds almost like an eruption." Her violet and gray fur started to stand on end and her ears swiveled towards the door. Soon the entire room seemed to shake slightly from the tremors as if the whole mountain rage were having a mild earthquake.

Hal grabbed his bowl of soup and downed the rest in a single inelegant gulp, standing as he did so. Better to get the food into his stomach before the earthquake spilled it on the floor. He wiped at the few droplets that escaped his mouth onto his feathers, and ran for the door. As he flung it open and stepped out into the chilled mountain air, the source of the rumbling became apparent.

Up in the sky, a massive fireball was tearing its way through the atmosphere, shedding smaller fireballs as it descended. It was a meteorite, and a rather large one too if they could hear its descent. It was also alarmingly close to their present location. There was hardly any time to speak before it impacted the ground, slamming into a gully not more than two miles away, kicking up a large cloud of sparking dust and pulverized rock. The shockwave shook the entire observatory violently for a split second before the ground once more became still, and the sound of the wind was all that remained.

"A meteor impact this close! Amazing!" Hal was instantly excited, his tail thrashing around eagerly as if trying to get a better view of the impact site. "To think that something that large would land so close to the observatory... this is an incredible opportunity!" It was rare to hear Hal's raspy voice so animated. The development had clearly riled up the normally calm raptor.

He turned to run back into the observatory to grab his expedition gear, but was quickly stopped by Miri, who planted both hands on his shoulders. "Hal, take it easy. We're not going out there at night in this weather. We'd freeze to death for sure."

"But th-" Hal started to protest but was quickly cut off.

"NO." Miri put her foot down, literally, stomping a paw into the ground. "Freezing to death, bad. We can go search for the meteor tomorrow when the sun is out and snag it on the way back to the city. It's not going to be going anywhere."

Hal blinked his orange eyes at his companion, vertical pupils narrowing, wondering if he should protest further, but she was right. Freezing to death for the sake of science was not exactly plan A. "Fine..." His tail kept looking behind him towards the impact site, even as she pulled him inside, nearly shutting the door on it.

He let out a vexed sigh and walked back to the table to grab his bowl and help himself to a second serving of stew. His tail thrashed restlessly as he ladled the soup; Tesla watched it warily from the top of the telescope, having climbed atop the device during all the excitement. The hapless ryuu-neko was far beyond Hal's attention at this point, so he didn't even notice. He was focused on only one thing: Tomorrow he would find that meteor. He only hoped that in a remote place like this, there wouldn't be anyone else showing up to claim it first...

End Chapter 1


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Hal and Miri left the observatory early in the morning and began the long hike towards the meteorite impact site. Even though his face didn't show it, Hal was clearly excited about the find, and his tail energetically bobbed and weaved as they walked, taking in the glittering splendor of the Starfall Mountains. As the sun rose, the rays of light reflected on millions of tiny particles in the snow, showering the landscape with flashes of blue, purple and white. Even in the bitter cold Hal felt warmed by the natural beauty of his surroundings.

Miri was slightly less enthusiastic about their early morning trek. The indigo colored fox was not a morning person, and though she enjoyed scientific discovery and the occasional adventure, she was the sort of researcher that would prefer to work comfortably in a lab than go climbing sheer rock faces in the morning cold. Tesla, her pet ryuu-neko, sat wrapped around her neck like some sort of living yellow scarf. Like Miri, the creature was not yet ready for adventure and remained wrapped around her neck dozing in the sunlight and contentedly sharing body heat.

"We have to be getting close now." Hal reported, staring out into the snow as a faint halo appeared over his head as he used his power to see other ranges of light. An elbow to the ribs quickly snapped him out of it. Looking over, he was greeted with the disapproving glare of his companion.

"I hope so." Miri sighed. "You know I don't like being cold or forced to march when the sun is barely even up yet."

Hal chuckled, his tail resting its head on top of Miri's. "Well, well, please excuse the inconvenience, your majesty. I promise I won't make a habit of doing this every day." His tail-head flicked its forked tongue and blinked its quartet of blood red eyes.

"You wiseass..." Miri chuckled a bit herself at Hal's sarcasm. After giving him a light jab in retaliation she wrapped her arm around his and pulled herself closer to his side. This caused a slight hitch in Hal's step as he matched stride with the shorter fox, but he thankfully avoided falling face first into the snow. "...I'm cold." Miri offered an explanation on her own, her ears twitching briefly. "Does this bother you?"

"No." Hal shook his head but said nothing more, content to continue the hike as things were. They walked in silence for several more minutes, the time punctuated only by the occasional howl of wind and the crunching of sparkling snow beneath their boots.

"Hey Hal?" Miri eventually spoke up, breaking the quiet.

"Yes Miri?"

"...do you think we each have a destiny?"

The profoundness of the question caught Hal off guard. "What? Why do you ask?"

"Well, I don't know." Miri started, "I'm just thinking, do we have some sort of unique purpose for being here? For being alive?" She kicked at the snow, sending a sparking cloud of dust up into the wind. "Am I meant for something special or am I just another snowflake among millions of snowflakes, blowing around in the wind without direction or control?"

Hal frowned, wind ruffling the black feathers on top of his head. His tail flicked its tongue at Miri's face as it hovered alongside her. He wasn't sure if something was deeply troubling his friend, but the question had him thinking. "What do you think, Miri?"

"I think I do have a destiny. We all do. I have to believe that." She rested her head on his shoulder as they slowly marched on. "If I don't, then this world really is such a cold and terrible place. In the end... I just want to know that my life mattered somehow."

Hal was quiet for a long time. Eventually he stopped walking and turned to face Miri. When he spoke his voice was quiet, but there was a fire behind his orange reptilian eyes. "We each make our own destinies, Miri. In our final moments it will be the choices that we've made that decide whether we were worthy of our time in this world."

"Do you think our lives will be worth it?"

"I don't know Miri... but one day we will find out." Hal gave Miri a reassuring hug then clapped her on the shoulder. "But enough with the heavy questions already, we've got work to do. The impact site should be down the next drop."

At the cliff's edge they could see the crater. The meteorite had landed next to a river and at the center of the small crater lay an unassuming black hunk of rock that was presumably their falling star. Hal reached for his climbing gear and began to set up for rappelling down the steep cliff.

"Sorry Hal. I guess I always have a lot on my mind. It gets lonely up here in the mountains and you're one of the few people I feel I can talk to." She made an apologetic face as she likewise readied her climbing gear.

"Don't worry about it. I think about those things sometimes too. Besides, we're friends. You know you can talk to me about anything that's on your mind."

"Yeah."

Once the ropes and harnesses were secure, Hal started down the mountainside using short experienced hops to lower himself bit by bit along the cold and wet stone. Miri followed soon after, and Tesla who was used to their excursions simply buried himself in Miri's pack to ride out the descent.

When he reached the bottom Hal immediately started towards the meteorite, activating his power to see the wayward falling star with different eyes. He could hear Miri's verbal objection from behind him, but he could hardly hear her when a blinding light from the meteor overwhelmed him. Hal dropped to one knee and blinked his eyes, trying to shake away the spots he was now seeing.

"Hal! Are you alright? What happened" Miri's footsteps rushed up behind him and he could feel her hand on one shoulder.

"I... I don't know." Hal stood and shook his head. "That falling star... it's emitting so much radiation in other spectrums... it was like staring into the Sun!"

Miri looked over at the offending ball of rock, half buried in the snow. "It just looks like an ordinary rock to me..."

"You don't see the world as I see it, Miri. There is more to this falling star than it would appear." Hal slowly started towards the meteor, a very faint halo over his head as he squinted and tried to barely glimpse at other ranges of light.

The illumination was dazzling, awe-inspiring, and with each step he took closer to the meteor he could almost feel the light piercing his mind. A weight began to form in the pit of his stomach growing more heavy with every moment. Miri watched warily from a distance, arms crossed across her chest, her face drawn into a worrisome frown.

He was so close now... standing only a foot away from the wayward star. His eyes burned with searing hot pain. The weight grew heavier and heavier in his chest, forcing him to one knee. He slowly reached out one taloned hand towards the fallen thing. The closer he came the louder the silence grew in his ears; suffocating, deafening, and momentous. One scaled finger reached out to touch the blinding burning light...

Cold. A tremendous, soul shivering chill. This burning star was colder than any than any ice Hal had ever felt in his life and it cut through him in an instant, chilling him to the core.

The silence was unbearably loud, his body so heavy, the light so blinding. He wanted to look away, to move, but he couldn't. An eternity passed in that brief second, as Hal was held captive by the piece of heaven.

"HAL!" Miri's voice was screaming in his ears and Hal felt himself pulled backwards. Suddenly his senses returned in an instant, and he was on his back in the snow, looking up at the morning sky and the very angry and distressed face of his research partner. The halo disappeared from over his head.

"Hal! Were you even listening to me!? I've been screaming at you this whole time and you just kept walking towards that meteorite!" Miri pinned him to the ground, practically sobbing, her fur all on end. "What the hell is wrong with you!? What happened!?"

Hal blinked. His tail moved groggily as if awakening from some deep sleep. He looked over at the meteorite: It was a dull black hunk of rock sitting half covered in snow. "I... I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me. That stone. That... Star. It was blinding. Captivating. I didn't know what I was doing."

"I don't like this, Hal! I think we should leave this damn thing and just pretend we never even saw it! It was almost like it was controlling you!" Miri got off of him and helped Hal up out of the snow.

Hal dusted himself off and looked again at the Star. In normal light it looked just like a dense lump of ore. It was dull, quiet, and lifeless. "There is definitely something wrong with that thing... but we can't just leave it for someone else to find. We need to study it."

"What? No! Are you crazy? I've got a really really bad feeling about that thing! It's not worth it!" Miri looked terrified of the unassuming lump, and Tesla was likewise very agitated.

"Look, I'll just take a small sample for study and leave the rest. We might be able to learn something valuable from this thing. We could be looking at an entirely new form of energy source! It could change the world!"

"Yeah, change it for the better, or for worse?" Miri countered, crossing her arms. "Remember what you said about making the right choices Hal? Well this one is going to bite us in the ass, I just know it."

"Maybe... but I can't just ignore an opportunity like this. We can't ever learn and grow and evolve by sticking our heads in the sand, Miri. You of all people should know that." Hal hissed in response and turned away, walking back to the Star. He used his hammer to chip away a palm sized sliver and placed it in one of his front pockets for safe keeping. Even the small piece of the star was very heavy, and Hal doubted the two of them could carry the entire meteorite, even if they wanted to.

"I hope you know what you're doing, Hal." Miri frowned, but didn't try to physically stop him from taking the small artifact.

"I don't... but we'll learn more about this mystery star soon enough." Hal stood. "Come on, let's get out of here."

_"You're not going anywhere!"_ A new gruff voice emerged from behind him and Hal heard Miri gasp in surprise. "Hands up! Turn around! Slowly!"

Hal felt the cold weight of fear settle over his body, and as he turned he found himself staring down the barrel of a springer rifle...

**End of Chapter 2**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Hal grimaced as he stared down the business end of a springer carbine, carried by a rather tough looking wolf wearing heavy winter clothing. He could see several tick marks etched into the wooden stock, seven to be exact, and underneath the kill tally was carved a single word: "Jessie". Apparently, this springer had seen some action, and Hal was not feeling all that enthusiastic about becoming the eighth notch for that weapon.

The wolf grumbled in a deep commanding voice, "I said HANDS. **UP.**" His breath sent a dense cloud of water vapor floating into the sky, as thick as smoke and not smelling all that much dissimilar. Hal slowly rose his hands in surrender as his tail stared unblinking at his current captor. Hal wasn't sure who this person was, whether he was a trooper or a thug or a mercenary, but whoever he was, the wolf was not alone. Behind him were three other armed individuals, all wearing civilian winter clothes but packing firepower that suggested that this entourage was more than just some hikers out for a stroll.

Hal glanced over at Miri as he heard her whimper a bit at the springer barrel pointed in her face. She was fighting hard to keep her composure, and for a moment Hal was beginning to regret his insistence on recovering that meteor. Miri was a scientist. She wasn't expecting mortal peril in her day-to-day duties, and had they remained at the observatory, this morning would have been a lot less complicated. A dark colored female with blood red eyes regarded Miri with a sneer as she pointed her springer threateningly. The other two armed guards stood back a few paces, springers at the ready but not aimed at anyone in particular.

Everyone stood in silence for a few moments as the wind sent occasional sprays of cold glittering powder between them. Finally, Hal cleared his throat and spoke up. *Ahem* "Um... can we help you?"

The response to Hal's question was swift. His mouth was still finishing the question when a rifle butt smashed into his jaw with a jarring, sickening *THWACK*. The unfortunate astronomer went tumbling down into the snow, gracelessly. Hal coughed and blinked away the spots from his vision, and a strong warm metallic taste began to flood his mouth. He spat, and into the snow fell two of his teeth, punctuated by a deep crimson spatter of blood. As the stain seeped into the snow, it was renewed by a steady drip of more blood. The wolf shouted down at him angrily, "I did NOT give you permission to talk!"

Miri let out a cry of alarm but quickly silenced herself, not wanting to suffer the same fate. Another voice emerged from behind the gunmen. It was silky smooth, refined, and yet almost haunting in the way certain words trailed off. "Calm yourself, Brother Miles... these two won't be offering any resistance, will they?" Hal spat some more blood into the snow and turned his head to look up at the new voice. Stepping forward from behind the thugs was a woman clad in deep black heavy robes, trimmed in brilliant white-blue. Her footsteps in the snow made almost no sound, almost as if she were floating over the surface of the icy terrain. Her face was for the most part completely obscured by the large hood she wore over her head and the billowing clouds of fog from each breath she exhaled. Through the fog and the darkness a pair of bright, practically glowing, ice-blue eyes regarded Hal with sinister calm, unblinking. "These two are fortunate." The hooded woman continued, "They are witness to Celestia's blessing. They do not comprehend the gift she has sent to us, but even non-believers can be touched by her presence."

'_Zealots... great_' Hal thought to himself as he slowly rose to one knee, wiping away the blood from his face. The Order of Celestia was a relatively new religious group that worshiped the so-called Goddess Celestia, whose return to the earth was foretold to bring everlasting peace, justice, and order. They said that Celestia lived up in the heavens, looking down on the mortals of the Dreamworld, but in all of Hal's time studying the heavens, he had never seen any evidence of a goddess. With his power Hal saw more than most could even dare to comprehend.

"What do you want from us?" Miri spoke up hesitantly, fear and worry dripping from every syllable almost as if she was trying to bite back each sound as it escaped her mouth. After Hal had been brutalized for speaking up, it was doubtful she wanted to receive the same treatment. As each second passed, Hal was starting to believe more and more that they may not survive the morning.

"Want?" The hooded woman chuckled to herself, sending icy chills down Hal's spine. "This isn't a matter of wants, my dear. This is a matter of what is necessary. The goddess sent her gift to this world, but you were not supposed to be the first to witness it. No one outside the order can know of what she has bestowed upon us." Her voice dropped in pitch slightly, becoming as icy cold as the wind blowing around them. "So what are we to do with you two wayward souls... hmm?"

'Evil bitch', as Hal was now mentally referring to her, walked closer to Miri, emitting a low chuckle to herself. She extended one hand towards Miri's face, revealing a slender black furred hand with long sharp claws as the sleeve of her robe fell back a few inches. "My, my... you are a pretty one, aren't you?" Miri recoiled from her touch, offering a disgusted and defiant look. "Hmmmm, and such *fire* in your eyes too. Yes. It would be a shame to waste the life of such a lovely young lady..."

Miri let out a small grunt of disgust as the hooded woman turned away and focused her attention on Hal. He was kneeling on one knee in the snow, still dripping blood into the now sizable patch of red underneath him. He ran his tongue over the shattered portion of his teeth, feeling the gap created by his missing fangs and the sharp crags of a third chipped tooth. "And you, Mister Hero? What shall we do with you?" Hal spat another mouthful of blood and saliva into the snow and scooped up the teeth that were knocked out into one of his hands. "You can start by not adding to the dental bill I'll have to pay now." His deep and raspy voice was dry with sarcasm, and he let out a half-amused half-pained grunt as he slipped his teeth into one coat pocket.

"Oh? Are you sure you want to take that attitude with us, when your life hangs in the balance, young man?" The hooded woman stepped closer to Hal, folding her arms together and hiding her hands in the folds of her robes.

"Hmph." Hal rose to his feet, and regarded this mystery woman with a critical eye. He was immensely tempted to use his power to get some more visual information of her, but he didn't want to give them *more* reason to shoot him than he already had. "What do you want to know? You already seem to have some issue with us getting to the meteor before you, and I can't go back in time and change that. I know I'm not as pretty as Miri, so why don't you tell me what I need to do to not get shot today?"

The hooded woman laughed again, this time loud and heartily. The echoes of her bone-chilling amusement reflected off of the walls of the ravine, returning to the listener in terrible unrelenting stereo. "Your boldness is refreshing young one, but it will not tolerate any further insolence, even less so will Brother Miles." Miles grunted and lit a cigarette as he regarded Hal with a sneer. The woman continued, "Answer me this, Hero: Did you touch Celestia's gift?"

Hal froze. '_Oh shit._' He was pretty sure that touching the holy meteor of these lunatics was something he shouldn't have done. Remembering how it had held him captive made him deeply concerned that there really was something special about that fallen star, and if these zealots got their hands on it, he was fairly certain they wouldn't be using it to get everyone together to hold hands and sing songs of happiness and peace. He set his mouth into a firm line and swallowed some blood, responding with stony silence. His tail hovered over his left shoulder, blinking each eye sequentially at the woman.

"Oh? Not feeling very talkative anymore?" Miles grunted in amusement to himself, blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke towards Hal. "The lady asked you a QUESTION, boy. Did you touch the motherfucking rock or didn't you!" He cocked his springer carbine, and a tightly coiled spring-propelled round settled itself in the firing chamber with a distinctly tangible *clack*.

"Leave him alone! We haven't done anything to you! Please just let us go!" Miri cried out, her voice pleading for sanity and calm. "We promise we won't tell anyone about-"

"SHUT IT!" Miles fired his springer into the snow at Miri's feet, sending a short-lived splash of glittering powder flying up at her knees. The spring and empty casing from the now-spent round fell silently into the snow at his side. "You're next, Missy, so if I hear you make another sound, the next one goes through your throat!"

The robed woman continued to regard Hal with her haunting ice-blue eyes, peering out from beneath her hood. "I haven't heard your response yet, Hero. Answer me now or we will shoot the girl..." Despite the calm of her voice, Hal knew that this was not an empty threat.

"Yes." He begrudgingly offered an answer, hands clenching into fists. "Yes, I touched the bloody rock, alright? Leave Miri out of this. She didn't touch it."

"Is that so?" The robed woman sighed and shrugged her shoulders, turning her hooded face towards the four armed guards. "Very well. Seize the girl. We will bring her back to Anduruna and the Archbishop. I'm sure he can find some use of her." She turned her glowing blue eyes towards Hal one final time. "As for the raptor... kill him."

"What!? No!" Miri cried out in desperation, now almost sobbing. "Please stop this!"

"Get on your knees!" Miles commanded Hal, leveling the weapon at his chest.

"LIKE **HELL** I WILL!"

Miles fired his springer again, this time sending a round straight into Hal's right knee. The joint shattered as the metal slug buried itself in his flesh, and Hal screamed in pain as he fell. It was the primal emotion-filled cry of a doomed man, and his anger and pain rebounded off the walls of the gully and escaped up into the cold morning sky.

"NOOO!" Miri lunged at the nearest soldier, attacking the other woman tooth and nail, her voice filled with pain and rage. She was quickly overwhelmed as two others joined the fray and physically wrestled her down into the snow. She fell kicking and screaming, continuing to struggle.

Adrenaline coursing through his veins, his heart racing, Hal reached for his climbing pick and struggled to bring himself back to his feet in spite of his shattered knee. Miles simply smiled and aimed his gun at Hal's skull, gloved finger tightening on the trigger.

"Ahhhhggh!" One of the soldiers wrestling with Miri cried out in pain and fell into the snow, convulsing heavily as smoke rose from now singed clothing. Tesla, which had been hiding in Miri's pack the whole time, had emerged in defense of his master and delivered a high amperage electric shock to one of the soldiers. The little yellow furball darted around between the legs of his opponents, sending them into momentary chaos at his unexpected arrival.

"What the-" Miles turned to look at the commotion and the valiant ryuu-neko. He was distracted for only a moment, but Hal was fighting for his life and he was ready to do anything in the name of self-preservation. "RRRRAAAGH!" Roaring in anger, Hal pulled himself up on one leg and swung his climbing pick two-handed at Brother Miles with all of his strength and weight behind the blow.

Miles realized his danger at the last moment, but it was too late. The sharp end of the pick hit him square in the throat and didn't have the courtesy to stop there. Designed to punch through ice and stone, the pick had a far easier time with skin and bone, sliding effortlessly through his neck until it was stopped by the wooden handle Hal was gripping. As Hal finished his swing, a spray of blood showered his face with a fine mist of gore, which was immediately followed by the most terrible gasping and gurgling sound. Miles collapsed into the cold wet snow, coughing up heavy globules of blood and grasping weakly at the large pick still buried in his throat. Hal fell alongside him, unable to keep his balance. He immediately scrambled for the fallen springer, his only hope for survival.

The hooded woman, who had initially left the dirty work to her cronies, saw Miles get taken down and quickly drew a springer pistol from her robes, turning it on Hal.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl.

Hal's hands closed around the snow-covered rifle.

The pistol turned towards his chest.

He lifted the barrel and swiveled it towards the woman.

Her finger tightened on the trigger.

His finger tightened on the trigger...

The springer round slammed into his chest with the force of a sledgehammer, hitting the meteor fragment he had in his front pocket. It fractured instantly, and shards of star-borne ore lanced deep into his body, filling his chest with a brilliant hot-white flash of pain. His shot flew wide, taking out a small notch in the woman's hood but failing to hit the face inside.

She fired again.

And again.

And again.

Each round was a fireball of pain and heat that consumed his senses and sent his now limp body jerking backwards with every impact.

'_Oh god..._' Hal thought to himself. '_I'm dying..._'

'_I don't want to die!_'

'_**I don't want to die!**_'

The woman walked up to right in front of Hal and aimed her pistol one final time at Hal's chest. "Goodbye, Hero..." She pulled the trigger, and the last round slammed Hal's torso backwards into the snow, where he lay in an all too quickly expanding pool of his own blood.

**"NOOOOOOOO!"** Hal could hear Miri cry out in sorrow and in rage, but he couldn't see her. Already the corners of his vision were beginning to black out, as if he were descending down some long dark tunnel.

He felt a foot kick his body, and he started to slide backwards through the snow, carried by gravity down the shallow slope. "Hal! Hal!" Her voice grew fainter with each cry as a suffocating silence settled over his senses and the world faded away.

'_I'm sorry Miri..._'

His last thoughts were of her as his body slid into the river and floated away, carried by the frigid currents downstream to a destination unknown...

**End Chapter 3**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

_"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity..."_

Hal stirred, and he could hear a voice, faded and muffled, speaking with slow deliberation. The voice continued:

_"...but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible... This I did."_

Hal's tail was the first to open its eyes and in his mind Hal could feel the sensation of shape, light and movement. He struggled mightily to open his true eyes, and when he finally did he was greeted with a warm gentle light and a blurred world that was slow to come into focus.

"Hey grampa, lookit! Mister tail is waking up!" The second voice was that of a young girl, squealing with joy.

"Ahhhh, very good Sasha. Be a good girl and get a cup of water for our guest. We will finish story time later." The first voice replied, cracked with age, sounding like a squeaky floorboard combined with a rusted hinge. Hal blinked, and through the haze he could make out an ancient looking owl sitting at his bedside, closing a large leather bound book into his lap. The little one was scampering away though the doorway to the room beyond, eagerly fulfilling the task asked of her.

The owl placed the book on a small nightstand next to Hal's bed, and he could see now that he was laying in a cozy little bedroom of a rustic old cottage. His clothes were gone and much of his body was wrapped with thick white bandages. Though Hal tried to move, his body felt like it had been turned to lead, and even the smallest twitch of a finger consumed all of his strength and effort, leaving him exhausted and spent.

"Let me help you." The old man reached forward and gently helped Hal pull himself up to a more upright seating position, adding an extra pillow behind him to support his head. The owl gazed into Hal's eyes, welcoming him back into the land of the living with a gentle but somewhat sad looking smile. "It is not often that we get visitors out here in the Eridu Delta. Even less often do we get visitors who have traveled to the land of the dead and returned to speak of it."

Hal struggled to open his mouth to speak. "...I" His voice cracked and halted, and he only then became aware of a deep desperate thirst that tightened his throat. As if on cue, the little girl returned, clutching with two hands a crude ceramic mug filled with water. Perhaps it had been filled a bit too much as it splashed and sloshed with each eager bounding step, spattering the wooden floor. "Here's your water Mister Tail!" She held the cup aloft above her head with a smile. As Hal's vision continued to come into focus he could see that she was a small raccoon with large green eyes, not much more than 4 or 5 years old. She stood on her toes to raise the glass higher, expecting Hal to take it from her.

Due to Hal's difficulty moving, the owl accepted the water in his stead, patting the young girl on the head. "Thank you Sasha." Gingerly, the old bird raised the cup to Hal's lips and tilted it forward. "Slowly now..."

The water tasted cold and sweet on his tongue, though the chill of it caused him to cough violently on the first attempt to swallow. The owl patiently waited for him to recover, and eventually Hal was able to manage a few gulps between coughs. Even though he was now gasping for air, the water had provided him a small token of rejuvenation, enough to attempt to speak. "W-who?" He winced and grimaced as a sharp pain jabbed from within his chest, reminding his lungs that they should not do too much. "Where... am..."

"Easy, traveler... easy." The owl placed a hand on his shoulder, gently pushing him back into the pillows. "You must not push yourself too hard. You are still in very bad shape." He placed his hand on his chest, introducing himself once Hal was resting comfortably. "I am Mordecai. This little one is my granddaughter, Sasha." The girl smiled, fidgeting a little bit out of shyness. She seemed more interested in the head on Hal's tail than Hal himself, which she reached out to pet like one would pet a small family companion. "Hiiiii Mister Tail." His tail blinked its eyes slowly, but remained resting without complaint on the edge of the bed.

Mordecai continued, "You are in my home. A simple farm on the banks of the delta." He reached out one arm and wrapped a wing around Sasha. "It was little Sasha here who found you, quite by accident, while fishing for our supper. We pulled your body from the water and brought you ashore, believing you to be dead. That was four days ago." His demeanor grew more serious as he gazed with concern at Hal's bandaged body. "You can imagine our surprise that you were in fact still alive. You had very severe injuries. Very severe, indeed. No breathing. No heartbeat."

Mordecai shook his head slowly, a grim expression forming over his face. "I had nearly finished digging you a grave when my wife, Illyana, noticed that your heartbeat had returned." Blinking his eyes again, Hal saw even more of the room and noticed an older woman, a raccoon with similar coloring to Sasha, leaning against the door frame. Her eyes were closed and her head was turned to have her ears towards the conversation, listening quietly from the background. "The fact that you are now awake and alive is nothing short of a miracle."

Hal blinked and took a few deep breaths, trying to get his head around his new situation. The last thing he remembered was the pain of being shot. The dull sensation of falling. Cold. He did not dream. He did not see his life flash before him. There was only emptiness, and suddenly he was here in a bed with an unfamiliar man telling him how he was lucky to be alive... again.

"What is your name, traveler?" Hal blinked again and tried to focus. It was almost like he was learning to speak again, and his muscles were slow to respond to what his brain asked of them. "...Hal. My name... is Halcyon Adhil."

"That's a funny name!" The little girl hopped a little on her toes giggling to herself.

"Sasha!" Mordecai scolded her with an admonishing frown. "That is not polite. Go with grandma and get ready for bed. I need to speak with Mister Adhil alone for a while."

Sasha reluctantly obeyed and scampered out of the room, grabbing her grandmother by the hand and leading her away out of sight. Once they were gone Mordecai sighed a bit and shook his head. "I apologize for my granddaughter. She is... quite eager."

"No... it's okay." Hal took another deep breath, finding it difficult to get rid of the tightness he felt in his chest. As his nerves were slowly coming back to life, he was slowly being overtaken by a throbbing unyielding pain that started in his knee but moved up his leg to spread throughout the edges of his chest. The pain threatened to spider inward towards his heart, but it seemed to fade before reaching the center. He looked at Mordecai and tried to swallow before speaking. His mouth once again felt terribly dry. "Are you... a doctor?"

"I was, once. And lucky for you I still keep some of my equipment here." Mordecai seemed to understand Hal's thirst and once more helped him sit up a bit and held the water to his mouth for Hal to drink. As he did this, he continued his explanation, growing far more serious and clinical in his description now that they were alone. "You had five springer wounds, from two different caliber weapons. Your knee was shot with a medium caliber rifle, designed for penetration. It shattered the bone, but did not destroy much surrounding tissue. With sufficient time to heal, you should be able to walk with maybe only a minor limp." Hal grimaced as he finished his water, some droplets falling from his lips down onto his bandaged torso. That wasn't the worst news in the world, but it wasn't that great either.

"As for your chest wounds..." Mordecai continued, "They were... quite significant. It would have been irreparably fatal damage under normal circumstances, but as I was removing the shrapnel from your body I discovered something." He hesitated for a moment, almost unsure what words to use. "Something I have never seen before."

He reached over and produced a data-scroll, which he unfolded to show what appeared to be some sort of x-ray image of Hal's body. In his chest there were several irregularly shaped fragments highlighted in red. Hal instinctively put a hand over his heart when he saw the image, and wondered why he could feel no pain, no sensation, no anything in the center of his chest.

Mordecai cleared his throat. "These points are all fragments of some sort of rock that you had in your front pocket. It looks like a bullet struck the rock and embedded several pieces of it into your flesh. I was going to attempt to remove the shrapnel, but I found that your body had... merged with the foreign debris." Mordecai nodded to himself, as if agreeing that 'merged' was the proper word to use. "The cells around these fragments are integrating the shrapnel into themselves, changing their cellular structure, almost as if they were feeding on it and evolving from it. It may have been this mutation that has kept you clinging to life when you should have died."

Hal looked down at his chest and allowed himself to use his power. Somewhere buried under the bandages and the skin he could see several blue points of light. From each of those points, small tendrils had begin to snake out a short distance like fluorescent veins or arteries. Mordecai seemed a little surprised to see a halo form over Hal's head, but he didn't seem to raise any objections. "I can see them..." Hal swallowed and looked back up at Mordecai. "What does this mean?"

"It is hard to say..." Mordecai reluctantly responded. "What it _looks_ like, is a new form of cancer. Your cells are mutating, and the mutated cells appear to be expanding. Unfortunately, most cancers are fatal once they've spread too far. I do not know if this... evolution... will ultimately come to destroy you, or save you. Only time will tell."

Hal was silent for a long time. Mordecai placed one hand on his leg and gave him a comforting pat and a sad smile. "Take comfort in the fact that you have been given a second chance at existence. Perhaps a chance to make different choices, no? Say the things you never had the courage to say? Do the things you never had the opportunity to do?" The owl patted his leg again.

"Maybe." Hal gave a non-committal answer, deep in thought, a troubled look twisting his face into a grimace. The throbbing in his leg was distracting, and it was still quite difficult to speak through the pain. His thoughts drifted to Miri, and every time he closed his eyes he could hear her voice in the back of his head. Sometimes it was the sound of her screaming. Other times it was quiet conversations and simple moments they shared together. At the time those memories seemed insignificant, but now they were consuming him.

Was she even alive? Even if she was, she must think that Hal had been killed. He didn't realize until now how much he had taken her friendship for granted. She was pretty much his only friend, given the isolated life he lived. Maybe they could have been something more... but he had never allowed himself to acknowledge that possibility. Why? Hal wasn't sure why. The reasons all seemed so petty, so distant. They didn't matter anymore. How much time did he have left to try to make things right?

"I am sorry to burden you with heavy truths so soon after you have woken." Mordecai made an apologetic face. "But I believed it best to tell you now so you do not live the rest of your life on false hope."

As difficult as it was to hear, Hal in fact was grateful to learn the cold hard facts now rather than later. "How fast is it spreading? Can you tell?"

Mordecai shook his head. "I have only been able to observe you for a couple days, and mutagenics are not my area of expertise. The best I can tell is you have maybe a few months before the majority of your biological structure has changed. It is impossible for me to predict anything more precise without more data."

"_..._" Hal was silent once more, clutching one hand over his heart as he laid back and stared up at the rough wooden ceiling. A few months? That wasn't much time at all. He wasn't even sure if he would be able to walk in a few months.

"I think I've given you enough to think about for tonight." Mordecai placed the glass of water on the end table next to Hal's bed with the cold weighty thunk of ceramic on wood. "Rest up, young Halcyon. If you need anything just call out and one of us will help you."

Hal nodded his understanding without looking over, though his tail managed to lift itself a bit to watch Mordecai move towards the door.

"I will check on you in the morning. Sleep well, traveler." With that, Mordecai extinguished the light and shuffled out of the room, leaving Hal alone with his thoughts.

Hal wasn't sure how long he lay there in bed, awake, an agile mind racing inside a broken body. At some point it began to rain, and loud heavy raindrops started to splash onto the roof of the cottage. The intensity quickly increased from scattered thumps to a full on cacophony of sound and nature. He looked up at the ceiling and could see nothing at all but the dark shadows of a lightless room, blind to the rain beyond.

Closing his eyes, Hal thought about about many things. He thought about home, about family, about the stars in the nighttime sky and the chill of the mountains. He thought about the joy of discovery, the comfort of a friend, the contentment of deep conversation. He thought about the rain and the power of nature and the nature of power... But most of all, he thought about the dreams he never spoke of. The love he never shared.

When he opened his eyes again he looked through the ceiling and through the clouds to the burning points of light beyond, taking in a sight that he and he alone could ever see. He asked the stars no questions and begged them no wishes, and they responded in turn with only majesty and silence. It was not just a beautiful sight... it was beauty itself. The very concept distilled and condensed into its most eternal and basic truth. Even the most wretched and hopeless souls would be moved to tears and transcendence by it... if only they could ever see it.

_"I will find you, Miri..."_ Hal promised, _"And we will watch the stars together again at least one more time..."_

With the universe as his mute companion, Hal eventually drifted off to sleep, and in his dreams he dreamt of only one thing...

**End Chapter 4**


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Hal was bedridden for the next two weeks as his body continued to heal. Though he was eager to get back on his feet and back to Anduruna, he found Mordecai's small family to be very good company and capable caretakers. Each day they would share their meals with him, all crammed into the same small room to provide him company and conversation. It was through these conversations that he came to know each of them very well.

Hal learned that Mordecai had been a traveling doctor for several decades, simultaneously satisfying both his wanderlust and his desire to help others as he ventured from region to region treating anyone who needed his skills. Be it rich or poor, citizen or bandit, Mordecai always helped anyone who crossed his path, and often espoused the idea that all life was worth the effort to save.

It was during Mordecai's travels that he met Illyana, who was in fact completely blind. She suffered from a degenerative disease that destroyed her optic nerves, and unfortunately had lost her sight quite young. Originally just another patient for the wandering doctor, she eventually became his love, and the two found happiness and fulfillment together, sharing their lives as one. Their pairing was unusual, but it had survived the test of time.

Sasha was four. Four and a -half- actually, as the young girl would often insist. She loved helping her grandparents with tasks around the cottage and declared with pride that she was going to be a sailor when she grew up. And a princess. She always called Hal "Mister Tail", and loved to poke and play with his unusual four-eyed appendage just to see how it would react.

Every evening, Sasha and Mordecai would have story time in Hal's room, and it had quickly become his favorite part of the day. Hal would read a story to Sasha, and then she would attempt to read a story back for Hal, usually from a much simpler children's book. She was young, but bright, and full of life. A stark contrast to Hal's own crippled state. Over the days that followed, Hal shared the story of his fateful morning and the events that had brought him to Mordecai, and his caretaker was merciful in not prying too deep into the all-too-fresh and painful experience.

It took about two weeks, but eventually Hal had healed enough to where he could take his first hesitant steps out of bed. His knee was still wrapped in a sturdy brace, and he couldn't walk so much as hobble along with the help of some crutches. Each step sent a spike of pain jolting through his leg, but it felt so good to finally get out of bed that Hal barely even noticed it. Reclaiming some small measure of mobility was an important first step, and gave Hal some small measure of hope that maybe he could reclaim his life as well. In fact, both he and Mordecai were surprised just how quickly his body was repairing itself. Perhaps it was something to do with the meteor shard, or pure strength of will, but Hal was just happy to be alive and moving again, regardless of the reasons.

The morning that Hal finally emerged from bed, Sasha had already gone outside to fish and play, and he found Mordecai and Illyana out in the garden, enjoying the warm sunlight and gentle breeze of the Eridu delta. Mordecai sat alone on a stone bench, watching Sasha off in the distance, as Illyana tended to the flowers in her garden.

"Ah, so you've finally managed to stand on your own!" Mordecai's croaking and aged voice greeted Hal with delight. "How are you feeling?"

"All things considered... I'm feeling really good." Hal inhaled a deep breath of the sweet smelling garden air as his tail blinked up at the sun. "For a long time, I wasn't sure if I'd ever manage to crawl out of bed. Everything hurts, but I've gotten used to the pain."

"Good, good. Despite your injuries you are a healthy young man. I have high hopes for your ability to make a full recovery." Mordecai patted a space on the stone bench next to him. "Come. Sit. Illyana and I will be happy to have your company."

Gingerly, Hal lowered himself into a sitting position, trying to keep as much weight as possible off of his wounded leg. The process was difficult, but once he was seated he could take another deep breath and wait for the pain to subside. He took a moment to simply enjoy the outdoors and the fresh air. "You know, this is the first time I've been to the delta. It's beautiful." Hal's tail coiled itself up on the edge of the bench, happily basking in the sunlight.

"Yes." Illyana spoke up, not bothering to take her hands away from her task. She spoke with a mild accent, as if Anduruna was not her original home. "It is peaceful here. A far better place to raise a child than the busy districts of the city. Sasha can simply be a child out here, without a care in the world."

Hal watched Sasha out in the distance, splashing around on the shallow banks of the river. "Yes, she certainly seems happy." Hal hesitated for a moment before asking a question that had been on his mind for some time. "You said that Sasha is your granddaughter... so, uh, where are her parents? Do you raise her yourselves?"

"Ah." Mordecai's voice lost a little bit of its earlier cheer. "Her parents disappeared a few years back... They were sailors, and after departing on a journey one day they simply never returned." The old bird sighed heavily, shaking his head at the ground. "There was never any wreckage, no one knows for sure, but the ocean is as dangerous as it is beautiful, and sometimes... it simply swallows people whole." Mordecai shook his head again. "I am sorry for not telling you earlier, but they are sad memories, and not something I enjoy thinking about."

"No, no, it's alright. I didn't mean to... I'm sorry." Hal fell silent, feeling a little out-of-sorts. A chill shot through his chest, and he rested one hand there, wincing away the pain as he took a few deliberate deep breaths. It would happen, every now and then, the sudden shock of pain and cold, and he did his best to cope. When it didn't feel like icicles stabbing through his heart, his chest was simply numb and tight. The new sensations were a reminder that he was still recovering from near-fatal injuries, and that the rock that perhaps had saved his life, still had cold stony shards embedded underneath the scar tissue.

"You don't need to apologize," Illyana responded in a calm voice. "Life challenges all of us, and rarely waits for us to be old and wise before it begins. Sasha is so young, she has only a few memories of her parents, and she is not growing up without family. Mordecai and I are here for her, and she is becoming such an eager and adventurous little girl." Illyana smiled and raised her head up into the warm sunlight. "We are blessed to have her."

"Yes, I can see that." Hal nodded and looked out at the river in the distance, wondering how his life would have been different if he had grown up out in the delta, removed from the city, surrounded by relative peace and tranquility.

"I am wondering, young Halcyon, who do you call family? You have not spoken of any of your own in all this time." Mordecai rested both hands on the top of his cane as he sat back and looked over at Hal with large curious eyes.

Hal's tail fidgeted and thrashed around a little, telegraphing his discomfort. The wounded raptor sighed a little and shook his head. "If you really want to know, I'll tell you about my family. But it's not something I usually talk about." Mordecai nodded, but said nothing. Illyana continued to work in her garden but kept one ear turned to hear his story.

"I don't know how familiar you are with the district of Calypsa, but it can be a dangerous place. Order is a delicate balance of power between different organized criminal families, city officials, and cutthroat street gangs. My family, well, my father, was a high ranking boss in the Cordova mafia."

Hal shook his head and continued. "They did the usual stuff: smuggling drugs and weapons, illegal gambling rings, extorting local businesses and bribing public servants to turn a blind eye. I actually ran a few jobs myself, once I got older, alongside my twin brother, Marcus. Nothing too serious, just courier work mostly, delivering messages, money, those sorts of things." Hal actually laughed a little to himself, while his tail seemed to watch his head with confusion. "Gods, I thought I was such hot shit back then. Same with Marcus. We were such idiots..."

Hal stopped talking for a while. His tail curled back up in the sunlight and stared at the ground. "Our mother never approved of any of it. She loved us with all her heart, but she saw the path we were walking and what laid at the end. Dad kept us from ever getting involved with the real dirty work, but... we knew that we would be made men if we stuck with it long enough. Our little sister, Katya, was the good girl. She was so kind and beautiful, not a shred of malice in her heart.

"The problem with organized crime is... well... I guess the name says it all. You make enemies with rival families. You compete for money, resources, territory, and often to secure those resources violence becomes the means to the end. Dad was a big shot, doing a little too well, disrupting the balance, and one night the Dunkirk family decided to send a hit squad to permanently remove him from the equation."

Hal winced, fighting back another sharp lance of pain through his heart, and took another few deep breaths. Mordecai's expression had grown grave and sad, the lines on his face morphing from creases to deep craggy valleys. "I'm told they sent four men. Hardened criminals, heavily armed. They burst into our home at night and opened fire on anything that moved, then ran off into the night. Marcus and I were out making a drop... Dad, Mom, and Katya were home.

"We returned later that night only to find that our family had been massacred. Words... I don't think I can use words to describe what that felt like. I've spent years trying to bury that memory." Hal bunched his hands into fists, clenching them so tight he nearly pierced his own scales with his talons, but slowly he relaxed them after a long while.

"I'm sorry." Mordecai offered the only words anyone could offer. Illyana remained silent, having long since stopped tending to her garden once Hal had begun speaking.

"Look, you wanted to know about my family, so now you know: I don't *have* a family anymore." Hal's voice had grown bitter and sharp, and he almost spat each word as if trying to rid his mouth of some foul taste. He seemed to need a great deal of time to compose himself before continuing. "My brother and I parted ways after that... we each dealt with our grief differently. I went legit, got a degree in astronomy, and removed myself from the world. I found comfort in solitude and silence, and only found peace when I could marvel at the infinity of creation. Knowing that my life, my pain, and my mistakes, were insignificant compared to the scope of the universe gives me comfort.

"Marcus... well, I haven't spoken to him in almost 4 years. Where I left the city behind and lost myself in the snow and the stars, he ventured further into the chaos and lost himself among the din of the city. He bounced between jobs, lovers, ideals, religions... always looking for some answer but never finding one. He was filled with so much *rage*, so much restlessness..." Hal sighed. "We eventually lost touch, and neither of us has bothered to try to find the other."

"How sad..." Illyana stood and walked over to Hal, taking a seat next to him on the edge of the bench. She reached out slowly and found his tail, which remained coiled in the sun, staring vacantly at the earth. "Do you not think that you should find him again? Your brother?" She gently pet his tail-head, her voice low and filled with concern. "All of us have only so much time to call our own... and spending it alone is not the way to live a happy life."

"Marcus and I followed the same path before, and it brought us nothing good. It's better that we each follow our own roads now." Hal shook his head. "But you are right... no one should have to life their life alone and afraid. That's why I need to get back to Anduruna as soon as possible and find Miri."

"Miri. The girl who was with you when you were attacked?" Mordecai nodded slowly. "You speak often of her. She must be important to you."

"You could say that." With great difficulty, Hal stood up, willing his shattered knee into compliance despite its protests of agony. "Up until I met you, she was the only friend I really, truly had. And now she's been dragged into... who knows what: Some cultist mineral hoarding conspiracy plot. thing. Ugh, it sounds like a badly written story hook from some fantasy tale."

He grabbed his crutch and sighed a small sigh of relief. "I haven't talked about my past in, well, a long time. Its making me think."

"Thinking is good." Mordecai nodded in agreement and stood as well, resting one wing on Hal's shoulder in a comforting gesture. "I am grateful that you chose to share your story with us. I know it is difficult to tell. Remember, you have a new lease on life. Today is a new day. Enjoy it for what it is."

"Yeah." Hal adjusted his weight on the crutch and his one good leg. "I'm going to try going for a little walk, stretch out. Get a little fresh air and some more time to think about... everything." A cooler gust of wind slipped through the air, and Hal noticed some darker looking clouds slowly moving in from the sea. "I better make it quick. It looks like a storm is on the horizon."

"Yes, so it would seem." Mordecai took a step back and he offered a craggy but warm smile. "Just be careful not to push your body too much. At my age it will be difficult for me to drag you in from the rain."

Hal smirked and nodded, then slowly limped away from the cottage out into the open field, wandering nowhere in particular. Behind him he could hear the voices of Mordecai and Illyana conversing with one another, though his mind was so busy he paid no attention to the words exchanged.

"That poor boy is lost, I'm afraid" Mordecai lamented.

"No..." Illyana disagreed. "His path has a destination. He simply does not know what it is yet..."

End Chapter 5


End file.
